In the first week of the Easter holidays 32 pupils and four staff headed off to New York for an Economics and Business Studies trip with a packed itinerary. After a long flight on the Monday morning, and seemingly even longer queue for passport control in the USA, we arrived in time for a meal at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. before checking into our hotel.

Tuesday saw pupils undertake a walking tour of the garment district of New York, seeing the impact of changes in technology, offshoring (and recently reshoring) of production and hearing about the marketing ideas of Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein before finishing at Macy’s for an understanding of the world’s largest department store. Given that this year’s Business Studies paper three is on the clothing industry, this tour was of particular use to those Upper Sixth Form pupils studying Business. With some free time to spend in Macy’s and the surrounding area a number of pupils also took the opportunity to spend their US dollars! In the afternoon, we visited the United Nations Headquarters where pupils were able to enter the General Assembly Hall and other key rooms although, as the Security Council were in session, we could not enter the Chamber. Given current issues in the news it meant that pupils could appreciate the very real situations which the UN addresses within those walls. From there it was to the Empire State Building to get a view of the city as a whole. In the evening, we ate at Ellen’s Stardust Diner where the waiters, who are mostly looking to make it on Broadway, take turns to sing and dance between serving courses.

Wednesday started with a boat tour down the river and past the Statue of Liberty, before heading to Wall Street for a guided tour of the outside of the New York Stock Exchange where pupils discovered what you, allegedly, need to do to get financial luck from the Bull Statue. From there, it was to Times Square for a meal before heading to Broadway where we watched MJ: The Musical.

Thursday morning saw us visit the 9/11 Memorial and pupils were able to learn about the tragedy which occurred and its aftermath. The memorial and museum are very engaging and pupils have identified this as a recommended part of future itineraries. Sadly, the weather on Thursday meant that the baseball game we were scheduled to watch in the afternoon, was postponed however, as an alternative, we were able to secure tickets to watch Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in the cinema, the day before its official release.

On Friday morning, we all had a behind the scenes tour of Madison Square Garden, finding out how it is turned from an ice skating venue to a basketball court in less than three hours. It often hosts both sports on the same day to maximise capacity utilisation. Pupils visited the changing rooms for the New York Nicks and New York Rangers as well as visiting a number of other key areas before finally having a question and answer session with the management of the stadium. From there, we all headed to Central Park for some free time until it was time to return to the hotel and then take the flight back to the UK. After a week in the City That Never Sleeps most were grateful to catch up with some rest on the flight home.

Feedback from pupils about the trip has been very positive with most wishing the trip had been a day or two longer. Pupils found the United Nations Headquarters and the 9/11 Memorial “really insightful and interesting” and remarked that “the activities were great and allowed us to see the whole of New York from various perspectives”.